Saturday, May 22, 2010

Baltic Sweater and Other Awesomeness

Baltic SweaterWell, I haven't been posting, but I have been knitting. Among other distraction. But more about that later.The Baltic is well underway. I've been working on it, well not exactly religiously as there have been some serious distraction but it has been my TV knitting. Now that I have gotten through the colorwork section the pattern is quite easy.

The dark brown yarn is mystery yarn. I purchased it on ebay sometime back. It looks like a single and it knits up such that the stitches have a column effect. I thought that it was a single that was unbalanced but when I wet it it does not twist on itself so It's not energized. Because of this columning effect, I did make 1 slight change to the Baltic pattern. There are columns of purl rows and I omitted 1 of the columns. This lets the diamond pattern stand out a bit more.

The light brown yarn is handspun (CVM - 2 ply)I purchased at A wool Gathering in 2008. I really like how the 2 yarns work together.

Socks (from the Toe Up)Well, my first official Toe up sock is done. I decided to knit up the whole ball of yarn and that got me a knee sock. The pattern is Garter Ridge and the pattern is from Chrissy Gardiner's Toe Up sock book. The pattern is incredibly easy and I'm really liking the toe up idea. I'm still working on getting my heel stitches just right on the short row heel, but not too bad overall.

I have to say the book is really nice and does a great job describing every technique you could possibly need or want for toe up socks. There are many cast ons, toes and heels to try. I'm planing on working my way through all the heels to see which one is my favorite. I think to make this go faster, I will have to stop knitting knee socks and work a bunch of anklets.

More to come. I still have tons to talk about. But I must head out to my daughter's Softball game.